Fans of the horrifically gory, boobs-filled HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones, and the series of books it was based on tend to have an opinion about the Lord of the Rings trilogy too. They either see it as a seminal work in pop culture history that paved the way for other cultural milestones such as Star Wars and Harry Potter, or they dismiss it as weaksauce populist pap that isn’t fit to hold Martin’s flagon of mead. Now, both sides will be able to see what the Games-man himself thinks about J.R.R. Tolkien, or at least which of the Ring-master’s characters could destroy which of his own in a fight.

In a recent interview with MTV Geek!, the wizardly, bearded novelist fielded questions on the nerd-mecca topic of a clash between Middle Earth and Westeros. His responses reveal that he is more than willing to tip his pageboy cap to Tolkien in some regards, but not all. Have a look through the slide show above to see Martin’s thoughts on which characters would win in an inter-dimensional fantasy slugfest. Do you agree with his assessments?